


of birds and bees (and academic pursuits)

by Ler



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: F/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:21:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23788495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ler/pseuds/Ler
Summary: Once upon a time, a Boy met Girl, and the Girl met Boy, and a tall glass of beer met the Boy’s shirt. If you think there is nothing new about this story, you would be correct. It is, in many ways, as cliche as things get. The boy could quote dead philosophers for hours, and the girl could name every muscle and bone in your body, and they, as boys and girls do in these particular stories, fell in love. And in many ways, they worked on many levels - friends, partners, lovers, spouses, parents. And I promise you, at many many times in their mutual lives they had very passionate mind-numbing sexual intercourse. This is just not one of these times. Kinda.[I'mDad!Au: where Walter is a history grad, and Barbara is a med student, and they have a whole life together and one (1) kid, but before that, they need to figure out that Walter is not a top, and Barbara is definitely not a bottom]
Relationships: Barbara Lake/Walter Strickler | Stricklander
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	of birds and bees (and academic pursuits)

**Author's Note:**

> Stricklake discord is a place where things happen, and sometimes those things are someone (me) logging in at 3am to share a funky fresh AU, which in a week becomes 27 funky fresh AUs. This is not even an au itself, it's like, a prequel.

The first time they have sex, it’s _so_ **slow**.

Barbara doesn’t have much experience with sex - to be honest, she has _some_ experience, but it’s not profound or all encompassing and definitely doesn’t include 4th base, until this very point - and she lets Walt know that’s the case, right before she pulls her t-shirt off and stands before him in her bra. She kinda doesn’t want him to change his mind.

Barbara doesn’t have experience per se, but what she does have is knowledge, because a) she is a future medical professional, and b) she did her research of various literature and film, some of that film of… adult variety. 

Walter takes this information in a way he takes all information that expands his understanding of immediate reality: with deliberation. He stands before her, baggy sweater and dishevelled-ish hair, and _thinks_. He probably thought up his approach to this particular situation well in advance and now her sudden admission requires his rethinking, so he does just that. 

It’s… endearing. 

If a little frustrating, since she is standing in the middle of his dorm room in her bra and all. 

«Should I put my clothes back on?» she asks when goosebumps are starting to crawl up her arms. It’s february, and the college administration is keen on keeping the temperature comfortable, but not too comfortable. Walt looks up at her from the point he’s been staring at the carpet for the past five minutes or so, fingers rubbing his chin pensively, and jolts a little. 

«Oh, I...», he mutters, and for some reason passes her one of his jumpers, hanging limply from the chair by his desk. «Here.»

It’s of a wooly and thick variety, coarse loose stands prickling her palms as she takes it from him, and now it’s her turn to stare.

«Babe,» she says.

«Yes?» he replies, and locks his eyes with her’s - and they are full of this delicate softness that’s is probably the reason she stands where she does in the first place. 

«I asked if I needed to put _my own_ clothes on and give you five, maybe go find some tea. There _is_ a kitchen on this floor, right?»

«NO!» he makes an urgent step forward, probably misreading her idea as regret to do the thing they set out to do. «-I mean, if you want, I just- It’s a Big Detail, you know. It’s absolutely on me, but I rather assumed you… did this already?»

Oh, the Drama. 

Barbara can’t help but smile. «From what? Our makeouts in the back of the library?»

«Well,» he is back at it, the spot on the carpet. «Yes. Especially the part where your hands were _inside_ my trousers.»

He… is not wrong. Some bases were indeed covered, mostly as an experiment, if she was ready for the next steps. Since hers were not the only hands in exciting places. And if the «hand stuff» proved anything, _she was_ **_so ready_ **.

With him. She is ready _with him_.

Walter is many things, and the more Barbara finds out - the more she likes. The low key theatrics, the puns, the history jokes, the smooth playfulness, the thoughtfulness and the ponder, bouts of philosophising and comfortable silence with a cup of coffee. The way pickles are evicted from sandwiches - more for her, seriously - and the way his hand curls around her waist, and press her, encompass her, their slim sides fitting against each other in puzzle piece kind of way. 

Lord, she is crushing so hard. 

And yes, she keenly wants to know how they would fit _without clothes on_.

«Well, I’m glad that you found my application of theory to practice satisfactory.» The sleeve of a wooly sweater tickles her abdomen, and it’s such a funny weird sensation - because it’s his sweater against her naked skin in a room that smells like him, books, soap and sandalwood? - that makes her toes curl in her boots, and her fingers fumble with the weave. «But I have more theory that needs to be _applied_ , if you catch my drift.»

He does, if the deep intake of air that makes the wings of his nose fly and his flat chest rise in a large wave are to be considered.

«Alright,» he says. «Okay. Alright.» 

And then there is a whirlwind of motion. 

Curtains are drawn, and a tape player is pulled from the windowsill on the desk, papers shuffled aside, and then, as a thought, stacked into a neat file. Drawers are rummanged, cassette tape boxes produced and browsed through, one chosen, opened, closed, and set back down for the other to be taken out in its turn, opened, the tape placed inside the machine to play something smooth and atmospheric. 

Oh. 

Oh god. 

He is… setting the mood.

Barbara has to cover her mouth with one of her hands because otherwise she would start laughing and… no, she doesn’t want to laugh at him, it would be just mean. She just forgot that some things, important things, Walter is very… performative about. Not in a bad way, like he has to do something he doesn’t want to do, but, in fact, the opposite. He «performs» because he cares. It comes naturally to him, like his slightly debonair appearance, with regulated kind of aloof, like his room, that he calls «a mess», which is defined by a bed being slightly rumpled and books piled on the desk in stacks.

The stacks he is now stuffing in the bookcase, eyebrows pressed in distress. 

Walt is, in many ways, her antithesis with her hair constantly undoing itself and pens erupting from her bag, and _she never wanted anyone more in her life than she want this man right now_. 

His wooly sweater falls on the floor. 

Her fingers press between his shoulder blades. This makes his hands stop in his tracks between trying to decide which goes first, _Nicomachean Ethics_ or _Spinoza’s The Ethics._

«I think neither of them would mind,» she says, pressing a kiss against the protruding hill of his C7, peaking over the collar. Her fingers travel down his spine and over his lower ribs, meeting in the front. «If we bump uglies on that single bed over there.»

He stuffs both on the shelf next to each other and his stomach quivers under her touch.

«…Wine. This requires wine.»

«No,» Barbara latches her fingers together to keep him from moving away. He makes an attempt. It’s ineffective and results in him simply turning around, her chest pressed to his. Walter looks down, probably to share with her his scorn, and is faced with a fact that she is still dressed in her bra. The scorn disappears without truly forming. «No, it doesn’t.»

Barbara raises on her toes, her nose smudging against his lightly. «Nervous?», she whispers, smile pulling at her lips as his fingertips press at her hip bones to keep her balanced. 

The look he gives her is one of a tortured artist, at least. 

«I can do better,» he notifies her. 

«Better than this? I have doubts.» 

Walt bites his lower lip. «It _is_ a single bed.»

«Well, good thing we are not going to use it to sleep.»

He lets out an exasperated sigh, and she raises an eyebrow. His fingers find a firmer perch on her (still clad) hips.

“Babe, you look more worried about punching my v-card than I am,” Barbara experimentally drives her hands lower, to the elastic of his top, and sneaks them under, against skin that is smooth and warm, the sensation of it making her close her eyes and lean her forehead against his shoulder and breath him in. There is something so… belonging to this, like coming home and curling on the couch under your favorite blanket. 

She wonders if he feels it too, this connection between them that she think is, very highly probably, _love_. 

There is tension in him, running through the muscles of his back, and she caresses them gently, to the rhythm of his terse breathing against her ear. 

“Relax,” she murmurs to his neck, and kisses up it. “I doubt there is anything there that you haven’t done before.” 

Hands now firmly find their place on the curve of her pants, he bows his head, nuzzling against her ear, and… says nothing.

...Here’s something she didn’t consider. 

(because she too made assumptions based on their previous… experiences, so maybe her assumptions were on the same vein as his, and she, _too_ , was _mistaken_ )

“Walt,” she pulls away slowly, just enough to catch his eyes, looking down on her with giddy sort of trepidation. “Have you ever had… sex before?”

Walter blinks, slowly. “Yes, I’ve had sex before. What I haven’t done before is… you know.”

“Deflowering?” Barbara suggest.

“Makes it sound like someone raiding the poor old nextdoor lady’s garden.”

“Popping the cherry?”

“No, that’s actually worse.”

“I don’t think there are any euphemisms for losing virginity that are good.”

“I don’t think there should be,” he grimaces.

_This won’t do_ , she thinks, and pulls her hands away. She immediately wants to put them back. 

Instead, her palms go up and cup the sides of Walter’s narrow angular jaw.

“You have concerns. I don’t really see what they could be, so please share with the class.” Walter chews on his lips, so she gives him a peck (that he responds to immediately - good, at least some things are the same). “But first I’m putting something on, this is not a no-shirt temperature.”

Walters hand rise up to her waist-

_oh they are so warm, and soft kind of nimble, and_ **_yes_ **

\- and then immediately pull away.

“You are freezing!” he almost chastises her and-

-pulls off his sweater, in a way men do, in a single pulling motion over his head that barely tussles his curls. “It’s february, Barbara,” he adds, and then pulls the very same sweater, also warm, also soft, over her. 

It takes a moment to rearrange her arms in the sleeves, and pull hair out of her face. 

“My shirt is right there.”

“On the floor.”

“On the floor,” she repeats, and alright he has a point, and his sweater is Walter-warm. “And what about yo-”

A very interesting point occurs to her: she has never really seen him naked. She felt him, fingers bravely wondering up his sweaters, and once or twice, down his waistline, but she never quite _saw_ anything. 

So this is what she rashly exposed him to by… exposing herself. 

Walter is thin, his torso narrowing visibly from shoulders to hips, and almost all of him is.... scholarly pale. Almost, because birthmarks decorate him in constellations, coffee dark, and his chest hair is black and curly, lightly splattered across his torso yet in a definitive trail from his chest bone all the way to his lower abdomen _and lower_ and she is probably staring (probably at that _lower_ ) - Walter coughts, softly, into his fist. 

Barbara shakes her head.

“So.”

“So,” he smiles, and looks and her with the same tenderness, except he is now half-naked and a bit more ruffled, and he better start talking soon or the sweater is coming right off. 

“What seems to be the problem, Mr Strickler?” 

“Well, _doctor_ ,” he folds his arms over his chest. “To my pleasure, I’m seeing this young miss, who is bright, and talented and quite a conversationalist, if I do say so myself-”

“You clearly have expertise in that.”

“Clearly. And she is, from what I understand, is quite taken with me in turn.” Walter walks around her and starts picking up things she left in the other side of the room. “And it has come to point between us that we would both like to consummate this relationship, so to speak.”

“I hear a ‘but’ in this sentence.”

Walter’s hands turn, long fingers flexing, her shirt folding between them.

“ _And_ in any other situation I would have boldly embraced this mutual desire of ours. But it’s her first time, _which I was notified about only recently_ , and well, it’s a completely different case.” He stops all his ministrations. “Because it’s _her_.” 

Something sticks inside Barbara’s throat as a thick unsavory clump. “And what is wrong with her?” she says, somehow, over it.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with her,” he replies, her neatly folded shirt between them. “She is perfect in all ways and I want her to have all the best she can have. And this-” he jests wildly towards the bed, and the desk, and the smooth jazz. “Is absolutely subpar.” 

“Walter, you-” Barbara has no words, and all of them simultaneously. “You are an absolute dumbass.”

“There needs to be candles, and champagne, and all the other nonsense. And I should be… _good_.”

_Oh_.

“I think we found the root of the problem,” she pulls the clothes out of his hands and sets them on the nearest shelf. It takes some effort since he is gripping them like his life depends on it. “You are worried you won’t be… _good_? Is that right?”

“Yes, it’s a very important condition in this whole process,” Walt nods and the lock of his hair falls over his face. 

She takes another step closer. ”And you think you won’t be good because…?”

“Because nobody's first time is particularly good in general? There are certain discomforts associated with it on your side, so to speak, and on mine, it requires considerable attentiveness to make them as… discomfortable as possible, and THIS-” He once again points at the room surrounding them. “Is not making it better.”

Barbara looks at this man, who always opens his sandwiches, and check for milk in her coffee - the cafeteria lady tends to get overwhelmed and forgets to put it in - and has color coded binders, and is halfway to driving his department head insane because he keeps rewriting the introduction to his thesis so it would give more “kick”.

“You don’t think you will be attentive enough to my needs. You?”

“I’m not as pedantic as you think I am, love.”

Now he’s done it. 

“Show me how not pedantic you are,” her fingers go to pull on the bottom of his sweater that is almost too comfortable to take off. She emerges from it in a cascade of hair because her hair tie finally gave up, and throws the offending garment at him. “I’ll even write you a performance review. In detail.”

With that, Barbara twists her arms and unhooks her bra, swinging it in the general direction of smooth music soundtrack. She lands on his bed with a hop. 

Walt remains in his place, unmoving.

“You are already losing points on attendance, pal.”

As Barbara is attempting to kick the second boot off - the first one came off just fine - Walter’s hands find their way around her ankle, and he sits by her side, her foot popped on his knees. carefully undoing the laces. He pulls, and sets the boot on the floor. 

“Nice of you to come,” she smirks, poking his shoulder, _hell yes bare shoulder_ , with her now free appendage.

Walter pauses, and then his smile, oh that smile, that can is simultaneously soft and mischievous, comes back tenfold with that glimmer in his eyes spells: _trouble_.

“Well,” he says. “Now you are just stealing my lines.”

“Wow.” Barbara flops on the covers as Walt ducks under her assaulting limb. “WOW. I think that cost you at least ten points in bedside manner section.”

Two hands land, gently, on her kneecaps and start travelling _up_. It feels like an expedition, akin to long journey with turmoil-ridden paths that would probably make a grand cinematic masterpiece. Walter’s voice above them is not far from being a narration, with its drop to a deeper, purring tembre.

“I’m a bit at disadvantage here, darling. I’m not quite aware of all the categories I’ll be judged on. Care to list them for me?”

His hands reach the edge of her pants, thumb circling the button, and, despite the subtle hint of her enthusiastically raised hips, leave that particular location to travel onwards, flat and velvety on her bare skin. Alright, she’ll bite.

“There is already mentioned attendance, and bedside manner.” She looks up at the ceiling of the room, which is plain and white and not quite inspiring. “Tho I would probably re-sort it into ‘communication’, since it sort of fits there, and you are high on communicaA-Ah.”

Walter’s hands find her breasts.

They’ve been there before, once or twice, but it’s still an experience. She doesn’t have much in that area, and maybe it’s for the better-

- _his palm is big enough to fit her whole breast under it, feeling shape, fingers tracing the form in spiral motion from the outer edges to the very center of her areolas, flicking the peak, stiff from the chill and other things, like the encroaching press of other’s pelvis against hers_ -

-which is still quite enough to warrant the look of pensive curiosity drawn on his face, which she finds quite similar to the one he sports while studying historical sources. 

“Want me to get you a notepad?” she raises her arm and combs her fingers through his curls. “I’m brilliant at taking dictations. Their consecutive readability is another thing-”

“Oh, I’ve _seen_ your handwriting,” he states quite soberly, eyebrows raised, his long face somehow longer. “That’s not a language, that’s… something else. Cuneiform, perhaps? Future historians _will_ wonder-”

“They will wonder-,” Barbara tugs on his ear, not roughly, but enough for him to winse a little. “At what happened to your nerdy ass if you don’t get over here right this second.”

“Patience is a virtue,” Walter remarks, yet follows the pull of her hands in his hair, hands that have been quite idle for some time. 

“There is nothing virtuous about what we are doing he-” 

Walter is not looming. He doesn’t have a frame on her to be looming. Yet maybe this is part of his performative streak, because he _slithers_ against her body _,_ arms moving over her head, shoulders wider than she can comprehend, the tension of his trapezoids highlighting the slenderness of his neck, and sharp definitive clavicles.

“-re.”

And yes, his pelvis is now firmly between her legs, and his skin is touching hers, and she can feel that chest hair tickling her navel, and she wants to _touch all of him_. Her dull nails trickle, along his neck and over the birthmarks. 

“Doing okay?” he mutters, as he fingers reach under his ribs. 

There must be something on her face, maybe anxiousness, so she switches her attention quickly back up, where his face, framed by curls, purses its lips.

“Yeah,” she fixes her eyewear, somehow it is still there.

“Should I get these for you?” He moves his weight to one arm, and fixes the hairs that found their way on her face. 

“My glasses? No, thank you, I prefer to see things, and not move around by touch alone.” Barbara hooks her finger under the rim of his pants, where the tension of muscle created a cavernous groove.”Unless you’re into this sort of thing.”

“Well, I’ve always found moles to be deeply alluring and intriguing creatures,” he smirks and then promptly collapses on top of her with something like a shocked giggle because she attacks one place she _knows_ he is ticklish at. “Barbara!”

“You know what moles also do? They bite.” And she does just that, curling her back and sharply catching his lower lip between her teeth for a quick tug. 

Next thing her head flops back on the pillow, pressing deeply from the pressure of lips against hers, in kiss searing and hungry and this is what she’s been waiting for, open mouth to open mouth, Walter’s tongue gliding against the roof of it. His hand cradles the back of her head, thumb pressing against her cheekbone.She knows this feeling, from many of their library escapades - why is it usually in the library is beyond her, but maybe it’s something about Walter and the face he makes when he sees the book on the shelf out of its Dewey-Decimal order. Something that makes her want to… well, grab his ass and turn him into a complete and utter mess. 

Perhaps, she should do just that, which her hand already strategically placed and all. 

So she skimms, along his hip bones, and around, with the steady wave-like motion that their bodies kinda automatically fell into. It takes almost no deliberation on her part, and she _squeezes_. 

The sound Walter makes into her mouth is a deep rumbling growl that she feels all the the way to her feet, most prominently - where her presses against her _down there_. And a growl is not the only thing she feels. 

“Oh m-” she has to take a deep breath, or two, head thrown back, the air ran out much faster than she noticed.”-My, Mr Strickler.”

Walter nips at her chin. “Would you hold your horses for five minutes?” 

He is very, very warm. She has to double check, fixing her glasses, again and yes, his ears are glowing red. 

“If the horses are held any more that that, they will fall asleep, grow old and die.”

“Nothing like a touch of macabre to get the blood going,” Walter squints, his body slightly rearranging, and then his head is down again, this time - trailing kisses, soft and playful, along her face and neck, to pause for a quick shuckle at her pulse.”While horsing around.” 

“A lot of animals in the material tonight, babe. Not exactly ‘lions, tigers, bears’- OH, this is _nice_.”

The last part relates to whatever the sucking motion happens at her clavicle, mimicked by his free hand on his other side. 

“Noted,” Walt pecks the spot he’s been worrying at, and proceeds downwards, in kisses and nips and licks, and quick pinches of his fingers, that are an interesting combination of feelings, especially when applied to her… breasts. 

It’s not as if it doesn’t feel nice, just she kinda hopes for… more. Or at least she does until he pulls on her _nipple_ with his _teeth_. 

“ _Fuck_!” 

That’s her, shuddering, hands previously gliding along his back with his movement, fisting into his hair. His eyes, shooting a look of pure worry, are wide and acutely focused.

“I’m so sorry-” he starts, before she pulls on his hair a bit harder.

“Do that again,” Barbara even pushes herself higher, her elbow bend.

Walter blinks, then slowly, his eyes locked with hers, lowers his head, and touches his tongue against the peak, and his teeth, and pulls. And this one is somehow _even better_. 

Her fingers change from a grip to a soft pet. “You previous horse joke is redacted from the transcript just for _that_.”

Walt’s laugh is muffled by the space between her breasts where he burrows his face. “Shall I proceed or we can develop this line of though a bit further?” He asks, propping his head against her chest bone. 

“Proceed,” she ruffles his hair benevolently, and falls back, eyes closed. 

The kisses proceed, lapping at her stomach, hands gripping her sides, and his shoulders nudge against the inner sides of her thighs, until all of him, mouth and hands, reach the waist of her pants. There is a moment of deliberation.

“May I?” he asks, and Barbara almost groans.

“Are you going to ask every time you are about to do anything?”

She feels his body lift. 

“Yes.” Comes a response, and she has to be prop herself back up at the tone of it. 

“You understand that I want this, right?”

“Yes.” He sits between her legs, hands placed at the bends. “But you can change your mind any moment and this is why I’m asking.”

“I won’t.”

“Glad to hear that, but I’m still going to ask.”

She stares at him and his hair, and this stubborn stupid look on his face, that is just an epitome of calm and this self-asserted courteousness, and…

Barbara rolls her eyes to the ceiling, still white, still boring. 

“Take my damn pants off, Strickler,” she falls down, again, so the she can lift her hips when he does as instructed, satisfied little smirk and all. “I swear after we are done with this, next time, you are bending me right over that desk and I’m throwing all your books from the tabletop in the process.”

She peeks down as he chokes on whatever he wanted to say. 

“And the curtains will be open,” she adds as Walt gasps at the audacity. 

“These windows are right in front of my department’s building!” 

“I’m sure your department head will be happy to find out you don't spend _every_ waking moment rewriting your thesis for 800th time.”

Pants slip past her ankles, finally. 

It’s a nice view, everything considered, her outstretched calves kissed lightly, and then spread, as Walter makes a similar trail he did on her torso, his look still little shocked and appalled. 

And oh, her underwear is not there as well. Well now, _that_ is cooking with gas. 

“I think something happened, and you are still wearing your pants. Allow me to help you with that,” 

She tries to get up - oh, her muscles are going to be sore tomorrow from all this up-n-down - but is stopped by Walter’s hand on her celiac plexus.

“Not yet,” he tells her. “I have something else in mind.”

“And what could that be-,” she starts saying, as Walter scoots down his bed and presses his mouth _there_.

_There_ is between her legs, there the black of his hair mixes with the red of hers, and at first she can’t even understand what he is doing, soft slick caresses, polite licks, and pulling motions, kinda unexpected and new, so she just receeds her comments to feel all of that. 

It’s pleasant. And at first it’s just that, pleasant, not in a direct kinda way his fingers felt, but a little bit like… _music_. 

And just like music, it grows, gaining momentum and intensity, and the pulling motions, she thinks, she likes them the best, so she hums in tune whenever they come around, which in turn makes Walter return to them more and more often. At least until he throws a curveball in form of something firm and malleable - it’s his _tongue_ , sweet heaven, it’s not just good for talking - rolling a circle around her clitoris, affirmative and decisive, clockwise and counterclockwise, settling for the former, and then breaking it into bits, small points along the circumference, and experimenting with every single one, until he reached the one around 9 and her legs temporary decide to disconnect from the rest of her body, jerking against his ears, as if the rising heat in her core commanded them to do so. 

“... _okay_ ,” she let him know breathlessly, hands, both of them, latching into his hair, in case he, god forbid, decided that it was not a good kind of kick and he need to stop. He doesn’t need to stop under _any circumstances_. 

It was a very good kick. And it seemed like Walter figured that out as well, because he assaulted that spot mercilessly, to the extend it suddenly got difficult to breathe because he just _kept at it_ , and her body just couldn’t stop quivering.

There was something missing though, something she could not define, amidst Walter’s heavy panting and oral ministrations in her nether regions, and then it comes to her in form of a finale to that performance, a nice blues-y line from the recorder, and a single of Walter’s fingers pushing, extremely lightly, _inside_. 

Barbara is sure she will end up with fist-fulls of his hair. 

She makes a sound that she is pretty sure can be read as affirmative, because that's all she can master. The rest is just a gasp at the absolute constriction of her muscles from abdomen outwards, all the way to the back of her head, and the almost flying feeling of release, and she can't quite tell which is better, the tensing, the crash-flying, or the tickling smooth sensation of something gliding along her inner walls during that whole experience. 

Her landing is smooth, like a dissipating wave, and almost lulling, in Walter’s smooth jazz, and in her state, she finds it so very funny, endorphins probably cause havoc all over her body, that she can’t help herself and giggles, not quite sure at what exactly. 

Walter’s head raises from her lap. 

His breath is deep, rocking his chest back and forth, face flushed, mouth open, but what’s interesting is his eyes, soft warm, with familiar tenderness, and yet something so new in them, something she can’t name.

“How do you do?” she asks, tingly and even a bit jello-like.

Walt grimaces. 

“My mouth hurts,” and it’s kinda lisping because he keeps moving his jaw side to side and flexing his tongue over his upper teeth.

Barbara, simply, cracks the hell up. She just started to catch her breath and now this. 

And Walter, looking over her with those strange new eyes, chuckles, and snorts, and huffs, and then harks a laugh so stupid and natural and _him_ , she wraps her legs around his waist and makes him stumble down to her, where all she wants is to kiss him, and maybe laugh some more at his mimics.

That plan stalls at kissing, because he is now down there with her, tasting… sexy, if there is a way to describe it, even if his tongue is kinda sluggish. 

Oh, and his pants, especially what’s inside them, are at just the _right spot_ , still flushed and sensitive from their previous exercise.

“You alright?” Walt asks her quietly, just as she figures how to make her legs move. 

“Yeah.” Her fingers very much travel downwards. “But I think among many things coming, the time to take off your trousers has come as well.”

Walter’s lips pull into an O. “Good one!” Her pecks her cheek. “Give me a moment.”

He moves aside, but instead of stretching his hands down to join her, Walter opens a bedside drawer and starts digging in it.

“Walter. Pants.” She reminds him, and then decides to just… go forward with her line of thought. 

The button on Walter’s bottoms pop under her fingers. They dip inside.

“Wait!” He warns her, looking frustrated by the moment. “Where did I put those blasted things?”

“You are what? Looking for condoms?” Barbara smiles, while her fingers, and at part thighs, start pulling down the remainder of Walter’s clothes.

Mostly because she want to know that the trail of hair end where she thinks it ends.

“Yes, actually.” Walter huffs, ears starting to burn again. “I definitely had them here somewhere.” 

“Mmmhmm,” she nods, and finally pulls the elastic of his boxers down. 

It’s... a penis. Barbara read up quite a bit on them, and not only because she was curious. Her personal experience with them is limited only to one Walter Strickler, and now actually seeing it she can say it’s… on brand? 

Well, she knows a couple of thing on how to deal with this one in particular. 

“Are you done there?” she asks looking up, at the underside of Walt’s chin, his bobbing adam’s apple, a complete lovely mess of hair that he haven’t noticed yet and the slant eyebrows that are drawn together in genuine confusion.

“I can tell you,” he says, clearly controlling the temper in his voice. “That there was a box of condoms in this drawer, and now they are not there, and this is very concerning to me.”

“Have you considered,” Barbara starts, still looking up, while her hands stretch down and get a… handful. “That someone came in, asked if you had any, you pointed at the drawer, they took them and left. And you can’t remember that.”

She gave a small tug.

Walt’s attention immediately skipped from drawer to her to her hands and back to her.

“First, that’s impossible. Second, _hands, Barbara_.” 

She squeezes and he groans, his fingers wrapping around her wrists. 

“Funny story, babe, this is exactly what it’s like talking to you when you are neck deep into one of you books. Last thursday? I brought you coffee, you said ‘thank you, sorry, I need to finish this because I want to put it in my sources’, I replied ‘it’s alright, I’m so tired I’m gonna go lie down and maybe be dead for next three hours”, and you told me ‘sounds good, have fun, love you’. Rings any bells?”

Walt stares at her (chuckling wildly), and then before himself, sitting back on his heels.

“No, that can’t be… You are yanking my- _Yes, Barbara, very funny!_ ..- _chain_ , I wanted to say **chain**. Oh, so that’s where that coffee came from?!”

...how can she not love him, honestly.

_Oh. She probably_ **_does_ ** _love him._

“Help me get up,” she says, and lets go of what she was holding as a sign of good faith. 

Walter pulls on her hands, and she sits, leaning forward to press a kiss to his confused mouth. 

“You are the most organized mess I’ve ever met,” she purrs against his lips and marvels, how a smile spreads on them, and she can look at that forever. His fingers slip down her palms and entwines with hers.”Good thing I’m a chaotic order, so this works. Pass me my pants, I brought some.”

“Very prepared of you,” Walter notes and leans over the side of the bed, because this is where he dumped her things, the horror. “If only you brought your own pens. Ever.”

“I _do_ bring my own pens,” the search in the pocket yields results extremely fast. “Bingo! I just can never find any of them.”

“Well then,” he says, eyeing the offending square, as she throws her pants back where they came from. “Still want to do this?”

“Walter, I just pulled a condom out of my pants, two seconds ago. ...What do you think?” She pokes his chest with one of the corners. “Shall I do the honors or you’ll _handle_ it?”

The wrapper is plucked out of her fingers, and she is punched to lie back. 

“You need to let me know is anything feels wrong, Barbara.”

She seriously can _not_ with him sometimes. 

Barbara has a feeling she is making a face, because the crinkle of the foil stops. 

“Barbara, I’m not joking.”

She brings her chin as low as she can, possibly to non-verbally communicate that _Fine, she will,_ except-

\- it is him, in all of his skinny and birthmark pale glory, angular shoulders and protruding clavicles, mane of black hair and vivid concerned green eyes, and well, _that thing between them_ (and she doesn’t mean _feelings_ , because that’s different bucket of worms altogether), and Barbara can’t help but feel anxious little flutters in her tummy.

“Yeah,” she swallows. “Will do.”

And adds, to a flick of her fingers. “Come here.”

He does. Carefully, Walter crawls between her legs and over her body, and he is heavy and solid, perching himself on one arm, as his other hand rest of her waist. 

“Just relax,” he pulls, his lips covering hers, and words of some sharp wit that she wants to conjuguer fade away because they are kissing and kissing and _kissing_ , in an almost captivating rhythm, and in this whirlpool, she can barely registered his hand slinking down and between her legs before his fingers come into play. 

Fingers, nothing else. Barbara _is_ about to complain that he is stalling again, but apparently he already made some conclusions, and his digits perform spectacularly around her 9 o’clock point, to the extent that she shoves her own hand there, bumping against him and _his_ , to make them go harder. 

“You can use words,” he breathes against her, in a brief moment between one kiss and the next. 

“And you can use you pe-,” she retorts, with the end of the sentence becoming a kiss and a whimper, as his fingers dig lower, and _curl in_. It’s a stretch, an exploration and the sensation of wetness, persisting since his face left his mark on her other lips, only amplifying. It’s a little bit foreign and strange, that there is something alive inside her, but she honestly can’t complain, especially when he makes a movement with what is probably his middle finger, pressing up against her inner wall. “Walter, if you don’t proceed, I will bite you again.”

The pressure against her thigh _jerks_.

“You can do that when we get going if you want,” he suggests cheekily, and then his hand moves away, taking hers along, up to the pillow, and instead of it comes… a length. Firm and slick, rubbing against her space in slow rocking motions, and suddenly the whole of her is _anticipation_.

And then it stops.

And Walter’s whisper in her ear is hoarse. 

“If you need me to stop, just say STOP and I will, I promise.”

And

And 

_And_

_There is a_ **_slowest_ ** _pressure_. 

So slow, that she thinks her nails are doing more damage to his back and hand, and she braces, they are both bracing for pain, Barbara counting Walter’s ragged strained breaths, as he eases _into_ to her.

And it’s fifteen minutes at least, when his thighs firmly press against her and Barbara opens her eyes and feels... full? And that’s about it. No painful twinges and pulls. Just…. maybe _occupied_ is a good word?

Walter breathes out, sounding more strained, and raises carefully, without any unnecessary movement.

He looks into her face, searching for any signs of discomfort and encountering her, blinking back.

“Huh,” he says. “Are you... fine?

“I guess that wasn’t a problem, lucky me,” she feels her nails popping against his skin, and winces at his slightly bared teeth. “Sorry. I’ll look at that when we’re done.”

There isn’t any space for her to move, so Barbara rolls her hips lightly, right to left, mostly through the flexing of muscle, adjusting. Above her Walter sighs, lips pulled into a thin pale line. 

“You okay?” She asks, combing his hair, and, with a smirk, flicks his ear. “Just _relax_.”

“Hardy-har,” he mumbles, trying to keep his face as straight as possible, but she sees how hard it is, because his cheek twitches. “You are the worst you know that?” 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Strickler,” she attempts to make the same kind of stoic face he sports. “Only serious business in this sex from now on.”

Walter’s stomach twitches against her, and a small shudder runs through his shoulders. Teeth digging into his lower lip, even as his cheeks puff up, small wrinkles forming under his eyes. 

“I’m trying to concentrate, love.” 

It’s with a little hickup that he shares, with this barely contained amusement, that Barbara decides, finally, that they will be _alright_ , whatever goes. 

Her arm, the free one, wraps around his head, and they kiss, again, with sweetness and delight, and she senses his fingers clutching tighter in the pillow under her head. 

“Move,” she pants, and goes back to his mouth, and he does.

Extremely slowly, barely a friction at all, it’s more of a rocking motion of them both, his hips sliding against hers with a snail pace. And she sort of expects him to pick up and surely gain momentum, to get at it eventually, and yet he just remains and this almost non-rhythm that is simply not enough.

“Faster,” Barbar bites his lips.

He grunts in confirmation, and picks up. Barely.

Barbara Lake always considered herself a practical person, since she was usually quite good at doing something if theory was solid, and she made sure it was. 

(Except that one time she almost caused fire in her college rental. Walter was there. The look he gave her, holding a charred something that was supposed to be a grilled cheese sandwich, was beyond description. He called her a threat to culinary arts, and made her a sandwich that was quite good and had twice as many pickles in it, but she didn’t complain.) 

The theory, in this case, is that if he seriously expects her to give him cues, she just has to show that they are skipping the 800 steps of whatever this multistage programm he concocted in his mind. So she twists her hips, first to match his speed and then faster, and even faster, to the point that Walt, has to stop kissing her and rise up a little, with a flushed face and a frown to end all frowns. 

“Bar-bara,” he barely manages, and yet it was supposed to be a warning? Good luck with that. Not with your face like that, baby.

“Keep up,” she bares her teeth and with more space provided, gives herself a bigger amplitude. 

He tries. “Wait,” a pause and she is this close to murdering him, while he does something with his legs. 

Her thighs rise a bit higher, and wrap around his waist. 

“Walter, if you stop again, I will-” She doesn’t really know what she can threaten him with, and she kinda forgets where that was supposed to go, Walter is-

-OH. 

  1. _OH_. 



**Oh** , he is moving, alright. Hands on either sides of her head, careful no to pull on her hair, and this is different than before, the angle maybe, but he is moving, and she is moving, and _okay_.

There is something absolutely beautiful to this, to his concentrated flush-glowing face, strained arms and shoulders, the barely visible ripples over his ribs, the insistent constant motion of their hips against each other. Hands free, Barbara uses them to skim his sides, to feel this life and tension, good tension, under his skin, even in the tiny wrinkled fold of skin forming on his lower abdomen-

“Please... don’t... tickle me-,” Walt seaves through his clenched teeth, as she reaches them, and the line of hair running right through. 

She wasn’t _planning to_ , but now she kinda has to stop herself from doing just that. “Or what?”

“Or _this_ ,” and his hips do a twist and slap against her sharply, hitting something _inside_. 

The noise her mouth makes is not a word. Her nails dig into his sides.

“Liked that?” he goes on, the movement now spiced with those occasional twists, not as defined though, and she feels her breath hitching with every single one.

“Do that- _ah-_ thing again.” 

Walter nods. Their skin slaps, The jolt is so good her head luls back, eyes closed. The tension starts pulling again at her insides, and she can’t help but smile at it’s return. 

Clearly he gets it, because the sharp sparks are introduced into the routine, in abundance. 

Walter, it seems, finally got the sense of mischievous experimentation in the process, since his body goes forward and down, her torso curling under him - oh this can be good for her neck, biting at the edge of her jaw. 

“How about this,” he says, and repeats that very interesting thing he does with his hips.

It’s… **nope**. 

The hit… _hits_ , just somewhere deeper and a lot less enjoyable. 

“OUCH,” teeth on edge, she hisses, the aftershock making face twist. Her fingers brab tighter, making sure he stops, which is not necessary because Walter _freezes_.

He holds his breath. “Tell me.”

“You might have bruised my…” Barbara scrambles her brain, popping anatomical model in her mind, fuzzy as it is. “...Uterus, a little.”

Walt, his lips immediate gathering into a terse line, begins pulling way. 

_...oh no, no, no._

“It’s alright! I’ve read about this,” pain almost gone, her fingers glide up and down his chest. “How about we try something different.” 

“Barbara-” he sits back, and her legs slip off his waist, heavy and a bit disobedient.

“Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

“In training.” One of his eyebrows raise. 

That gives her an idea.

“Dibs! I’m on top.”

She tries to sit up. It’s slightly more difficult than first appears. Fortunately, she has help. 

“Are you _sure_?”

“How does that song go: ‘It’s my party and I cry if I want to’? Well, this is _my_ party, and I top if I want to.” She lets her eyes wander down his body, linger there, and come back to his face (red), lips pulled into a cheeky grin. “Or the people’s court has words against me riding you?”

“I-,” finger raised in interjection, he opens his mouth, and then closes it with a pensive ‘hmm’. “This requires a vox poluli.”

“On your back, you nerd.” 

It’s less “him lying down” and more “Barbara tossing him down” - thankfully not against the wall, but he lands with a dull laugh, and she climbs over. 

Throwing her knee over him is quick - but the new vantage point provides her with this view, Walter’s narrow frame on the dark covers, hair in a dark halo around his head, stark on the white of the pillow, and the look akin to _reverence_ , his hands moving up and down her knees - she definitely needs more of _this_ in her life. 

She leans forward, find her weight against his chest, her lips pressing to his, her hair falling down and over them, and Walter’s groan is absolutely ecstatic, when his hands travel up and finds her buttocks. And she feels it, this certain atmosphere between them, and it’s _lush_ , like a tropical forest, and comes from the way her breasts press into his chest, and how their teeth clicks together, and it’s a great subterfuge, her hand pulling back to find his member goes unnoticed, at least not until she pulls away, to his little whine, and _sinks_. 

And oh, _this_.

this is _good_

Barbara rocks back and forth, eyelids lowered, idly wondering what it is that _makes_ this good. The freedom of movement? Walter’s hands, not really guiding her, more like being there with her, resting gently on her hips? Her own, pressing on his abdomen, and every time she does, there is a grunt, and judging by the way his mouth is slightly agape, he is enjoying this as much as she does. 

She looks at him and something in her _twitches_. 

Oh, she is going to absolutely _ruin_ this man.

Her hips do a sharp twist. Walter’s head pulls back. The column of his neck is long and pale. She stretches forward, lifting her hips slightly, keeping the small rocking motion to let the friction continue, and scratches gently along its length with her nails. 

Her name is a gasp, accompanied by a jerk of his hips under her, _up_ , and it’s one of the most magnificent things she ever experienced.

She lands back, forcefully, her hips slanted in just the right way, and she tucks her toes to use them, pushing herself up and back down again, and as an afterthought, peels his hands away, her open palms sprawled against his, and entwines their fingers, pushing down, turning them them into another point of leverage for herself and her restless, almost entranced, rocking. 

Walter tries to follow. His hips canting up, pushing against his heels, trying to catch her rhythm, but no, baby, no, she is not going to let him do that. Not when he makes little sounds that are close to distress, like a desire that’s just a tiny bit out of reach. Not when she can just suddenly go down and stay, grinding, knocking him out of his tempo completely. 

Not when she can, on the uprise, flex her muscles, inside, a little numb and tingly, and squeeze. 

“Ba-ah-rbara,” the look in his eyes is pleading, bordering on desperation.

“You like that?” she whispers, her movement almost brutal. 

“Yes,” is a response, soft and breathless.

“Give me a hand,” she finds herself telling him, no, almost commanding, and that alone is enough to make her feel like _glowing_. And instead of waiting for his answer, one of her hands, grabbing his, drives it where they connect. 

There, his thumb finds the 9 o’clock, and works magic, her hand keeping it in place, and she feel herself bowing back, in her rocking, the tension pulling and coiling and and driving her faster, and rougher over him, until she rips her other hand still grasping his, away, driving it back and digging nails into his knee, hard behind her back.

And Walter tenses, knees jerking and flexing, and falling in tremor, and twitching under her, and his hips hard and asking, no, stating. And the last little bit is his soft, almost wispy, and absolutely lost 

“ _fuck_ ”

And Barbara slips. She lands against him, heavy, fingertips pressing into his chest while all of her sparks, wave and wave, the delicious joy splashing under her skin making her chuckle and grin and spill into a giddy laugh, and there is something absolutely liberating about it, she can’t quite stop, smile plastered on her face when she looks down of Walter and his absolutely out-of-it expression. 

“Howdy, pardner,” she slurs, words sluggish and lazy on her tongue. 

Next thing he is pulling her, all of her, down to his chest and they roll over in tangle of limbs, lips pressing sloppily and uncontrollably, fingers tangling in hair and words, he is definitely saying something but she can’t pull letters apart, so resign out of doing so, catching his chin, their noses touching.

“Bumpy start, but I would say this is an overall win for the home team.”

“Yes,” he breathes, green eyes hooded. “I think that’s worth at least five, no, _ten_ points in teamwork.”

Heaven, he is so soft and warm.

“See, I was thinking. The desk idea - not really our thing?” She squints, and his face attempts to pull this pondering expression, but manages to do just _long_. Possibly because it doesn’t look like he can focus his eyes quite well yet. “Well, it’s viable… if you do that thing with your mouth.”

“My poor mouth,” Walter groans.

“Yes, your very talented mouth. Good job there.” A soft peck on his cheek and she continues. “But you know what’s a better idea? That chair of yours.”

“Oh?” his voice perks up slightly. 

“Yeah, you can sit on it, and I can sit… on you, if you catch my meaning.”

“Barbara,” Walter states sleepily, rocking them and with a couple of tries, pulling covers over both of them. “If we go again right now, I _might_ pass out. Also, we don’t have any more condoms.”

‘I have more in the bag,” she interjects, feeling a yawn creeping in. “Took a whole handful from a student center.”

Her eyes close and decide not to open up again. 

Something, probably Walter’s hand, picks her glasses from her face, and pulls them away. 

“Sleep,” he murmurs, lips soft on her forehead. 

“Single bed,” she wants to add, but gentle warmth takes over, with his quiet shallow breathing in her ear. 

  
  
  


It turns out, later, that bed being single was not a problem.

And that his chair was not made for planned activities. 

  
  



End file.
